


Monstrous

by placentalmammal



Category: The Adventure Zone (Podcast)
Genre: Dreams and Nightmares, F/F, Horror, Pre-Canon, Wonderland
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-24
Updated: 2017-07-24
Packaged: 2018-12-06 08:47:35
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,496
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11597151
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/placentalmammal/pseuds/placentalmammal
Summary: "There are others, others that hold onto an emotion: a drive, loss, revenge, or love. Those, they never go away."In Wonderland, Lucretia sleeps and dreams.





	Monstrous

**Author's Note:**

> I haven't listened to Stolen Century but I found this in my drafts and thought "yeah, alright." Title and quote from _Crimson Peak_.

Falling asleep is a mistake--she _knows_ this, the same way she _knows_ that she won't make it out alive--but she can't help it. Time passes strangely in Wonderland, but she thinks they've been inside for hours, maybe days. She's weary down to her bones, worn out from terror. She's numb to it now, and when she sits down, back to the wall, all she feels is exhaustion. Sighing, she rests her chin on her folded hands, and she is asleep almost instantly.

The landscape of her dreams is almost ordinary. She's standing on the deck of an ocean liner, dressed for tea and looking out over an unfamiliar sea. There are no waves or wind; the sea is still as death. Jewel-bright birds flutter beneath the water's surface, darting and diving like fish despite their wings and feathers.

Lucretia watches, enthralled, and clings to the railing. She can feel the distant hum of the ship's engines, but it doesn't seem to be moving at all. Vertigo swoops in, and she goes to her knees, gasping and clutching at her be-ribboned and be-feathered hat.

Behind her, someone clears their throat, and Lucretia whirls around, gaping.

The elf woman--the _lich_ \--is sitting at a small round table laid for tea. There's a domed silver lid over the plate in front of her, and Lucretia doesn't want to know what's underneath it. She focuses instead on the other woman's clothing. She's wearing leggings and a cherry-red leather jacket, unzipped with nothing underneath it. Heat rises in Lucretia's cheeks. She can't help it, the lich is beautiful. _More_ than beautiful, she is wonderful, marvelous, fantastic, glamorous, enchanting, terrific--

Lucretia takes a deep breath (and it's a curious sensation, the air is still and thin here, so still that she feels as if she's smothering) and collects herself. She rises, nods to the woman, and turns around again, standing on tip-toe to look for the shimmering birds beneath the water's surface. The hairs on the back of her neck stand on end, and she's suddenly cold, chilled to the bone. It's impossible to die in dreams, but the rules are different in Wonderland. She steadies herself, clinging to the railing and bracing for a bolt of black necromantic energy.

It doesn't come.

The elf woman laughs softly. "I'm not going to hurt you," she says, and there's an unspoken 'yet' at the end of her sentence. For now, she's all smiles and gentle nods. "Now tell me, dear, how do you take your tea?"

Lucretia turns around again. The elf woman is smiling at her, and her heart flutters in her chest--her stupid, dumb, _traitorous_ heart, too stupid to know when she's in mortal danger.

( _Of course,_ she thinks, _maybe it_ does _know._ Maybe it's self-preservation, maybe it's instinct. Maybe it's better to die in love than to die afraid. Lucretia swallows, sweat breaking out on her brow despite the lifeless chill of the dreamland. She _doesn't_ want to know.)

"Sit down," says the elf woman, and it's not a request. "The tea is getting cold!"

Mouth dry, Lucretia does as she is bid. Her dress is old-fashioned, with voluminous sleeves and trailing lace. And she's wearing _gloves_ , white cotton gloves with dainty pearl buttons at the wrist. They hide the scars and calluses on her palms, but Lucretia doesn't recognize her hands without them. Frowning slightly, she lays her hands on the table and tries not to stare at the other woman's bare breasts.

"Was that so hard?" Her smile widens, and she takes on the tone of a scolding auntie. "It's rude to leave a lady waiting, didn't your mother ever tell you that?"

"You're not a lady." Lucretia thinks without speaking, and clamps her mouth shut afterward, horrified. If the lich wasn't planning to kill her before--

The elf laughs. "What am I, then?"

"You're a lich," says Lucretia, stumbling over her words. "You're a _monster_ , you're--"

"I'm not the only one," she says pleasantly. She smiles a viper's smile and reaches across the table. She takes one of Lucretia's gloved hands and squeezes. "Why do you always bring up such unpleasant topics?" she says. "I didn’t bring you here to argue, I brought you here to _celebrate!_ "

Lucretia does not pull her hand out of the other woman's grasp. She should, but she doesn't. Instead, she swallows, and says, "What are we celebrating?"

"You!" The lich is smiling so wide that Lucretia can see her back teeth. Each and every tooth is perfect, a flakes of ivory cut to size. "We don't get visitors like _you_ in Wonderland very often!"

"What do you mean by that?" As soon as the words are out of Lucretia's mouth, the scene changes around them. Gone is the deck and the strange purple sea, gone is the tidy table.

They stand in an empty ballroom with a parquet floor and a ceiling of the deepest, velvety blue, enchanted to show unfamiliar constellations. Lucretia is wearing a shimmering, tiered gown with a square neckline. Her gloves are gone, but the lich is still holding her hand, and the touch of her flesh is agony, a thousand iron needles driven into bone. Lucretia cries out, and the lich pulls her closer, humming a waltz.

"Young," she says, teeth gleaming. Her palm cuts into Lucretia's skin. She tries to pull away put she can't; the lich's touch is barbed hooks and searing heat. She squeezes, and Lucretia hears her bones crack.

She cries out, and her knees buckle. The lich's arms are around her, a gibbet to keep her on her feet. Knives slice into her skin and slide between her ribs and vertebrae, digging deep into the soft tissues inside her. Black spots dance in front of Lucretia's eyes, but the lich keeps her conscious, keeps her upright even as Lucretia clenches and spasms in her arms. Pink froth bubbles up from her torn throat, and the lich _laughs_. She's still smiling, still humming, all her teeth bared as she drags Lucretia's limp body through the steps of a lively waltz.

"You're beautiful," she croons, her mouth millimeters from the shell of Lucretia's ear. Her frigid breath stinks of rot and unclean things. "So young and beautiful and talented! Full of life and promise!"

Lucretia's eyes well with tears. A whimper escapes her cracked lips and the lich's grin splits her face. Her lips peel back, and her flesh (her awful, searing flesh) turns to glass. Lucretia can see the outline of her grinning skull, see the black sludge in her veins.

"We'll have fun," says the lich, and her voice is the grinding of metal gears. There are no eyes in her face, just a gaping void, a profound lack. "Such _fun_ , you and I! You'll suffer to beautifully, love!" She tips her head forward and clamps her terrible mouth over Lucretia's in an obscene mockery of a kiss.

She screams. Screams loud enough to rouse the gods in their heavens, screams to shake the stars loose. Something dark and tarry and _cold_ pours out of the lich's mouth and slithers down Lucretia's throat. It flays her from the inside and plucks at her nerves like harp strings. Something fractures inside her, and the noise that she makes is liquid horror. There will be no light after this, she thinks, but she is beyond thought, beyond anything but pain. It wracks her body in seismic waves, and it would be easier to die than to endure _this_.

And the lich drinks it in and she laughs, a puff of graveyard air against Lucretia's twisted mouth and broken teeth.

She wakes on a cold floor, muscles twitching and jumping. A column of black smoke pours from her mouth and Cam is shaking her, calling her name. She claws her way to consciousness and her scream ends in a hiccup and a sob, and she curls up on herself, trembling.

"Lucretia," says Cam, and his voice is laced with terror. "Lucretia, it's me, it's Cam! It's just a dream, you're alright, you're safe--"

And it's a _lie_ because she can still feel the lich's cold skin, still taste the ash of her kiss. Her body is whole, but her mind is splintered The room is dark around her, and she covers her face with her hands. _If I can't see it, it can't see me_.

It is a long time before she stops weeping, longer before she stops shaking. An eternity passes before she can stand unsupported. And through it, Cam strokes her hair, pours tepid water down her throat. He is gentle, unexpectedly so, and Lucretia finds herself warming to him. Time passes strangely in Wonderland, but eventually, she is ready to move on. She grits her teeth and follows Cam through the shadowed doorway, her knuckles white on her oak staff.

And when she is offered the opportunity to flee Wonderland, she abandons him without a second thought.


End file.
